Wow, Chris. There's a lot to talk about here. The need for conferences like this is very real - you can talk about something specific and objective like, say, virtualizing something (big or small), and you can relatively quickly reach a succinct and 'correct' answer. But when you're talking about something as obtuse and subjective as 'improving IT innovation', you can spend lifetimes searching without finding an answer you like... and there will never really be a 'right' one. These speakers have offered some great takes, but I think most organizations will be better off finding their own path and incorporating some of these concepts along the way.

After all, if you're not Netflix (and nobody else is), then Netflix's approach won't work for you pound-for-pound. If you want to start from the bottom in a burgeoning industry and work your way to the top like they did, then some elements of their approach will be helpful - but others will be completely different depending on your industry... and a lot of luck won't hurt, either. The best lesson is that the speed of IT is only going up, but that doesn't have to be a scary thing. What all four of these speakers have in common is that they sat down and retooled their processes to accept and facilitate that speed increase, rather than living in fear of it or using a stopgap approach. That's something anyone can take away from this.

InformationWeek's IT Perception Survey seeks to quantify how IT thinks it's doing versus how the business really views IT's performance in delivering services - and, more important, powering innovation. Our results suggest IT leaders should worry less about whether they're getting enough resources and more about the relationships they have with business unit peers.

They say perception is reality. If so, many in-house IT departments have reason to worry. InformationWeek's IT Perception Survey seeks to quantify how IT thinks it's doing versus how the business views IT's performance in delivering services - and, more important, powering innovation. The news isn't great.